Gold Basin and Playdate

Max and Daddy at the river at Gold Basin Campground

Max and momma playing with the rocks

Max and Daddy in the River

Max put a smudge on the lens but I had to post a picture of his first popsicle. Watermelon!

Isabella's house

We had a great time last weekend at Gold Basin Campground. Max loves to go camping. He really loves sleeping in the tent.

I loved this campground because it had hot showers. When I told my coworker how great it was to have showers at the campground her face grimaced and she said that's not camping! She doesn't have kids yet........
It was nice to wash all the sand and dirt off of Max before he got in the tent and rolled all over our sleeping bags.
We hope to get one more camping trip in before the end of summer.

The other pictures are of Max at a play date. Unless Max is sleeping there is no keeping him still so we have to constantly be doing something or going somewhere.

Development Milestone:

We are starting to have little conversations with Max. We can ask him a few simple questions. What did you have for lunch? He'll answer.......noodles... at table.. and milk.

Since he began talking he's basically been answering questions with one word. But now he's stringing words together and giving some information that wasn't asked for like.....at table and milk. And he's also starting to sing songs, like Hush Little Baby, Kookaburra, and he counts to 5 and says parts of his ABCs.

I can't wait for him to really start talking. After spending almost 2 years with someone, you really want to know whats going on in their head.

Random Pictures

Slide


Banana

A blurry picture of Max in Daddy's shoes

Greenlake wading pool


I love this picture!
What do you think?

Guitars and Blankets

Tinkering at my workbench



The summer is in full swing and it's nice to be able to spend much of our time outdoors. Our garden has produced some nice basil that we've been munching on and soon we will have an abundance of tomatoes and beans.

I'm filling out the paperwork today for Max's co-op preschool which begins in September. I think I finally have my work schedule fixed to a comfortable level that gives me enough time with Max (if that exists) and enough income. We still await the news about Charles's job in the fall.

Paw-Paw and GJ have made their plans for a visit with Max in a few weeks and Grandma Phyllis recently bought her ticket to come out for Max's birthday.

Busy Weekend

Lincoln Park (West Seattle)

Discovery Park

Got Milk?

Summer Fun


Birthday girl Jen and Danielle


Elana, Taryn and Noah


This past weekend was a busy one for us. On Saturday Charles played at the West Seattle Art Fair and our good friend Jennifer turned 40. On Sunday we had a playdate/get-together at our house with 5 kids and their parents.

I totally missed the boat on taking pictures and missed some great photo-ops. I'm bummed about this.

One reason that I didn't get many pictures is that Max is still in his pushing/not sharing phase. Charles and I feel that he needs to be shadowed around other kids (more than usual) because he isn't quite grasping the concept of being gentle. We don't want any accidents! We are absolutely confident this is a passing phase so we are just dealing with it right now.

We are teaching him as best we can about sharing. It was especially good having kids over for Max to share all of his personal toys with on his own turf. It was also fun for us being with other parents. We'll be doing that again.

We continue to be happy with Max's daycare. He says daycare! daycare! on the way there and doesn't want to leave at the end of the day. What a complete turn around.

I credit them for teaching him please and thank-you.

Some of our favorite phrases right now are:

More milk pees

Mama/Dada help pees

bubbles bubbles ehrwey wer

ahh wahh u ( the ultimate heart melter)


Max is parroting so much of what we say and using new words everyday. We are having so much fun with our little man these days!

The chatty little man

Daddy here checking in ... thought I'd say a few words about Max's surge in development and some of the cool things he's doing.

Just a month ago, we were writing down his new words every day, thinking we could keep track, and we did up to about 50. Now, it would be an impossible task. Nearly every word you ask him to say, he'll try it and often he nails it. He remembers so many things and every day there's a new phrase or word he just blurts out. He knows his name, he says "Mats"; doesn't quite have the X down yet. Some of my other favorites lately are: sweet potatoes, weedeater, lawnmower, hammer, saw, mud, dirt (see the pattern here ...?) Yes, Max loves tools (the only 'kid stuff' he really gets into is Bob the Builder) and some of my favorites anecdotes lately revolve around his fascination with digging, hammering, etc:

• The other day we were driving along and he saw a big yellow backhoe on a trailer and he pointed and said "dig hole!"
• One thing he does alot lately is say "help dada"or "help mama"' when we're putting away his toys or clothes. I was fixing the storm doors to the basement and had to dig a little trench so the corner of the door would lay right. He saw me doing this and started saying "help dada" over and over and he ran across the yard to the shed and grabbed a big shovel and came over and started digging. He can actually work a shovel, I need to get a picture of it, it's priceless.

• Max is very tuned into music. He loves rock, the Beatles, Jason Isbell, My Morning Jacket. He likes to "pay" guitar along with Daddy and actually holds his little red guitar right and picks the strings, smiling and looking at daddy. And he has a drum and we'll be playing along together and I'll say "drum solo" and he'll start flailing away like John Bonham.
  
• When you say I love you, he says it back to you, kind of like "Ah whu yoo" and he gets a big grin on his face. And he's starting to get into drawing with his crayons and chalk, "daw" as he says.
  
• He's doing quite well at his new daycare, ELDC, and is almost getting to the point where we think he actually likes going. The first day I picked him up, one of his teachers, Kim, told me that he's very chatty and that none of the kids his age (21 months) are talking as much.


• One of the coolest things is that Max loves positive affirmation. He loves to impress you. When he does something cool and we say "Yes! Nice job, Max!" he gets the biggest smile on his face and usually giggles.
  

Of course, he gets frustrated more often than we'd like, is still fairly cautious at the playground and doesn't find contentment for very long in any one thing. But we're hearing more and more from teachers, parents and reading online that that is a sign of intelligence, that he has the capacity to think about multiple things at once but hasn't yet developed the basic skill of focus, which will come. And his cautiousness shows that he has the ability to think about the potential consequences of throwing himself headfirst down a slide or climbing too quickly up the ladder. Max has never been content to sit and stare at the TV for more than about 3 minutes, and although it would be nice to have that temporary baby-sitter sometimes to get some things done, it's a good thing to know he's not being conditioned to think that's what he needs to be entertained ... at least for now anyway. The days of Wall-E, Xbox, etc. are not that far off ...

Beckler River (Our first camping trip)

Max on daddy's back. My new favorite picture!



Max and momma cuddling in the tent.




Max and momma.



Max and Daddy sitting on a log.



Max loves to throw rocks in the river!


Although it rained on us most of the time, we had fun. Max loved sleeping in the tent, cooking chicken hot dogs on the fire and finding slugs.

With summer finally here we've been spending a lot of our time at parks and in the yard. Max loves to dig and make mud. Lately he's also been into coloring and drawing on the chalkboard.

Max has a full blown obsession with Bob The Builder. The books, the toys, the song, all of it!

Lake Forest Animal Farm was definitely a hit. Max loved to get up close with the goats and get wet under the water fountains. I tried to get a picture of Max and Malik together but couldn't get it. Toddlers!!!

There are two areas that Max is doing really well in these days.

1. Sleeping. This has been good for a while (except when he's sick) but it's been especially good since we bought him his new bedding. We went all out for the organic cotton bed and sheets. It was sort of expensive but not that bad. Since he sleeps so well on it we aren't complaining.

2. Talking. I think the only thing that is holding Max back from being able to converse with us is muscle development. He is trying to say several new words everyday and we just need to decipher them. He is also putting words together and using his signs with talking.

From birth until now his development has seemed like a slow moving train that made a lot of stops. Now it's like I'm sitting on the train looking out the window watching the scenery pass by. It's not stopping. It's chugging along with or without my help.

In public, however, Max is hit or miss. He may talk, smile and laugh or he may cry, push and be clingy and introverted. Yes, he pushes. Usually at kids his own age. It's embarrassing. We're working on it. At this point Max isn't showing the kind of social behavior toward other kids that we'd like to see.
His friend Malik, the sweet boy that he is tries to hug and hold Max's hand and Max won't have it.

But we know what Max is like at home and we know he's a lovey, huggy bear. He's just not quite ready to show it to the rest of the world yet!

Our Weekend

This is Max and Mason at Mason's 4th Birthday party. Mason is our across the street neighbor. He really loves Spiderman!
Charles is in St. Louis this week so it's just me and Max. Boo.